1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to computerized document management systems. It relates more specifically to methods for finding the correct place to store a new document in a strange taxonomy.
2. Background
Computer storage of soft documents is ubiquitous in modern technological life. Documents are filed in the computer according to a filing scheme, or taxonomy, which may organize documents by a variety of criteria. A taxonomy may be for a complex relational database with millions of records or for a web site with hundreds of pages. New documents are frequently created which must be added to the existing taxonomy. For a user of the computer to file the document, the user conventionally must have knowledge of the taxonomy in which the new document is to be stored. The user then selects a category, or node, within the taxonomy based on the user's knowledge of that taxonomy and stores the document in the selected category.
Access to strange taxonomies carries with it a costly learning curve for each user, because computer storage taxonomies can be incredibly complex. Furthermore, both those who would store and those who would retrieve documents from a taxonomy must have knowledge of it. As documents are added to an existing taxonomy, new categories may be formed, requiring frequent updating of the user's knowledge.
Human users vary in their perceptions and so each individual may categorize documents differently. As a consequence, one user's classification may be confusing to the next user's searching method, making document retrieval inefficient or impossible.
Accordingly, what is needed is a way to store documents that does not require the users who store and retrieve documents to know the taxonomy in which the document is stored. What is also needed is a uniform and predictable storage method that makes searching for documents in strange taxonomies more reliable and, possibly, faster.